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Romn

 * 1) In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice
 * 2) that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
 * 3) "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just
 * 4) remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages
 * 5) that you've had."
 * 6) He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative
 * 7) in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more
 * 8) than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments,
 * 9) a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also
 * 10) made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind
 * 11) is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it
 * 12) appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I
 * 13) was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the
 * 14) secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were
 * 15) unsought--frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile
 * 16) levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate
 * 17) revelation was quivering on the horizon--for the intimate revelations
 * 18) of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are
 * 19) usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving
 * 20) judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of
 * 21) missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested,
 * 22) and I snobbishly repeat a sense of the fundamental decencies is
 * 23) parcelled out unequally at birth.
 * And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission
 * 1) that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet
 * 2) marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on.
 * 3) When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the
 * 4) world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I
 * 5) wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the
 * 6) human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was
 * 7) exempt from my reaction--Gatsby who represented everything for which I
 * 8) have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of
 * 9) successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some
 * 10) heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related
 * 11) to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten
 * 12) thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that
 * 13) Tumblr_mcbl8wQj7i1rvnhzto1_400.jpg
 * 14) flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the
 * 15) "creative temperament"--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic
 * 16) readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it
 * 17) is not likely I shall ever find again. No--Gatsby turned out all right
 * 18) at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the
 * 19) wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the
 * 20) abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
 * 21) My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western
 * 22) city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we
 * 23) have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the
 * 24) actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother who came here in
 * 25) fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale
 * 26) hardware business that my father carries on today.
 * 27) I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him--with
 * 28) special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in
 * 29) Father's office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a
 * 30) century after my father, and a little later I participated in that
 * 31) delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the
 * 32) counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being
 * 33) the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the
 * 34) ragged edge of the universe--so I decided to go east and learn the bond
 * 35) business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it
 * 36) could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it
 * 37) over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said,
 * 38) "Why--ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance
 * 39) me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I
 * 40) thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
 * 41) The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm
 * 42) season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees,
 * 43) so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house
 * 44) together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found
 * 45) the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but
 * 46) at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out
 * 47) to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days
 * 48) until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed
 * 49) and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the
 * 50) electric stove.
 * 51) It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently
 * 52) arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
 * 53) "How do you get to West Egg village?" he asked helplessly.
 * 54) I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a
 * 55) pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the
 * 56) freedom of the neighborhood.
 * 57) And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the
 * 58) trees--just as things grow in fast movies--I had that familiarI_woke_up_one_morning_and_found_that_I_was_trying_to_kill_you.png
 * 59) conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
 * 60) There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be
 * 61) pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen
 * 62) volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood
 * 63) on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to
 * 64) unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas
 * 65) knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides.
 * 66) I was rather literary in college--one year I wrote a series of very
 * 67) solemn and obvious editorials for the "Yale News"--and now I was going
 * 68) to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most
 * 69) limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an
 * 70) epigram--life is much more successfully looked at from a single window,
 * 71) after all.
 * 72) It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of
 * 73) the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender
 * 74) riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where
 * 75) there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of
 * 76) land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in
 * 77) contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most
 * 78) domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great
 * 79) wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals--like the
 * 80) egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact
 * 81) end--but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual
 * 82) confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more
 * 83) arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except
 * 84) shape and size.
 * 85) I lived at West Egg, the--well, the less fashionable of the two, though
 * 86) this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little
 * 87) sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the
 * egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge
 * 1) places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on
 * 2) my right was a colossal affair by any standard--it was a factual
 * 3) imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side,
 * 4) spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool
 * 5) and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion.
 * 6) Or rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by
 * 7) a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a
 * 8) small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the
 * 9) water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling
 * 10) proximity of millionaires--all for eighty dollars a month.
 * 11) Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg
 * 12) glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins
 * 13) on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom
 * 14) Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom
 * 15) in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in
 * 16) Chicago.
 * 17) Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of
 * 18) the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven--a
 * 19) national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute
 * 20) limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of
 * 21) anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy--even in college his
 * 22) freedom with money was a matter for reproach--but now he'd left Chicago
 * 23) and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for
 * 24) instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest.
 * 25) It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy
 * 26) enough to do that.
 * 27) Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no
 * 28) particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever
 * 29) people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move,
 * 30) said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it--I had no sight
 * 31) into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking
 * 32) a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable
 * 33) football game.
 * 34) And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East
 * 35) Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was
 * 36) even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian
 * 37) Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach
 * 38) and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over
 * 39) sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens--finally when it reached
 * 40) the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the
 * 41) momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows,
 * 42) glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy
 * 43) afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his
 * 44) legs apart on the front porch.
 * 45) He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired
 * 46) man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.
 * 47) Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and
 * 48) gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not
 * 49) even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous
 * 50) power of that body--he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he
 * 51) strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle
 * 52) shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body
 * 53) capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body.
 * 54) His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of
 * 55) fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in
 * it, even toward people he liked--and there were men at New Haven who had
 * 1) hated his guts.
 * 2) "Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to
 * say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are." We
 * 1) were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I
 * 2) always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like
 * 3) him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
 * 4) We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
 * 5) "I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about
 * 6) restlessly.
 * 7) Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the
 * 8) front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half
 * 9) acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped
 * 10) the tide off shore.
 * 11) "It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again,
 * 12) politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."
 * 13) We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space,
 * 14) fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end.
 * 15) The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass
 * 16) outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze
 * 17) blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other
 * 18) like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of
 * 19) the ceiling--and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a
 * 20) shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
 * 21) The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch
 * 22) on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored
 * 23) balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and
 * 24) fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight
 * 25) around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the
 * 26) whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall.
 * 27) Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught
 * 28) wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two
 * 29) young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
 * 30) The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length
 * 31) at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised
 * 32) a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely
 * 33) to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of
 * 34) it--indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having
 * 35) disturbed her by coming in.
 * 36) The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise--she leaned slightly
 * 37) forward with a conscientious expression--then she laughed, an absurd,
 * 38) charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the
 * 39) room.
 * 40) "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness."
 * 41) She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand
 * 42) for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one
 * 43) in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had.
 * 44) She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker.
 * 45) (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people
 * 46) lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
 * 47) At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost
 * 48) imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again--the object
 * 49) she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something
 * 50) of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any
 * 51) exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
 * 52) I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low,
 * 53) thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and
 * 54) down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be
 * 55) played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it,
 * 56) bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth--but there was an excitement
 * 57) in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget:
 * 58) a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done
 * gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay,
 * 1) exciting things hovering in the next hour.
 * 2) I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east
 * 3) and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
 * 4) "Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.
 * 5) "The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel
 * 6) painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all
 * 7) night along the North Shore."
 * 8) "How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added
 * 9) irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby."
 * 10) "I'd like to."
 * 11) "She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"
 * 12) "Never."
 * 13) "Well, you ought to see her. She's"
 * 14) Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped
 * 15) and rested his hand on my shoulder.
 * 16) "What you doing, Nick?"
 * 17) "I'm a bond man."
 * 18) "Who with?"
 * 19) I told him.
 * 20) "Never heard of them," he remarked decisively.
 * 21) This annoyed me.
 * 22) "You will," I answered shortly. "You will if you stay in the East."
 * "Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry," he said, glancing at
 * 1) Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more.
 * 2) "I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else."
 * 3) At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I
 * 4) started--it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room.
 * 5) Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and
 * 6) with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
 * 7) "I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long
 * 8) as I can remember."
 * 9) "Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New
 * 10) York all afternoon."
 * "No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the
 * 1) pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."
 * 2) Her host looked at her incredulously.
 * 3) "You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of
 * 4) a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."
 * 5) I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed
 * 6) looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect
 * 7) carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the
 * 8) shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at
 * 9) me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented
 * 10) face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her,
 * 11) somewhere before.
 * 12) "You live in West Egg," she remarked contemptuously. "I know somebody
 * 13) there."
 * 14) "I don't know a single"
 * 15) "You must know Gatsby."
 * 16) "Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?"
 * 17) Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced;
 * 18) wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled
 * 19) me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
 * 20) Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two
 * 21) young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the
 * 22) sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished
 * 23) wind.
 * 24) "Why CANDLES?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her
 * 25) fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year."
 * 26) She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day
 * 27) of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the
 * 28) year and then miss it."
 * 29) "We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the
 * 30) table as if she were getting into bed.
 * 31) "All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly.
 * 32) "What do people plan?"
 * 33) Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her
 * 34) little finger.
 * 35) "Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."
 * 36) We all looked--the knuckle was black and blue.
 * 37) "You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to
 * 38) but you DID do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man,
 * 39) a great big hulking physical specimen of a"
 * 40) "I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."
 * 41) "Hulking," insisted Daisy.
 * 42) Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a
 * 43) bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool
 * 44) as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all
 * 45) desire. They were here--and they accepted Tom and me, making only a
 * 46) polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew
 * 47) that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too
 * 48) would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the
 * 49) West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its
 * 50) close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer
 * 51) nervous dread of the moment itself.
 * 52) "You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass
 * 53) of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or
 * 54) something?"
 * 55) I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an
 * 56) unexpected way.
 * 57) "Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently.
 * 58) "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read
 * 59) 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"
 * 60) "Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
 * 61) "Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if
 * 62) we don't look out the white race will be--will be utterly submerged.
 * 63) It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."
 * 64) "Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of
 * 65) unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them.
 * 66) What was that word we"
 * 67) "Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her
 * 68) impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us
 * 69) who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have
 * 70) control of things."
 * 71) "We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously
 * 72) toward the fervent sun.
 * 73) "You ought to live in California--" began Miss Baker but Tom
 * 74) interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
 * 75) "This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are
 * 76) and" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a
 * 77) slight nod and she winked at me again. "--and we've produced all the
 * 78) things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art and all that.
 * 79) Do you see?"
 * 80) There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency,
 * 81) more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost
 * 82) immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy
 * 83) seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.
 * 84) "I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's
 * 85) about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"
 * 86) "That's why I came over tonight."
 * 87) "Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for
 * 88) some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people.
 * 89) He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to
 * 90) affect his nose"
 * 91) "Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.
 * 92) "Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up
 * 93) his position."
 * 94) For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon
 * 95) her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as
 * 96) I listened--then the glow faded, each light deserting her with
 * 97) lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
 * 98) The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear
 * 99) whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went
 * 100) inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned
 * 101) forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
 * 102) "I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a--of a rose, an
 * 103) absolute rose. Doesn't he?" She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation.
 * 104) "An absolute rose?"
 * 105) This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only
 * 106) extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her
 * 107) heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those
 * 108) breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the
 * 109) table and excused herself and went into the house.
 * 110) Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of
 * 111) meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in
 * 112) a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room
 * 113) beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The
 * 114) murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted
 * 115) excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
 * 116) "This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor" I said.
 * 117) "Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."
 * 118) "Is something happening?" I inquired innocently.
 * 119) "You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised.
 * 120) "I thought everybody knew."
 * 121) "I don't."
 * 122) "Why" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York."
 * 123) "Got some woman?" I repeated blankly.
 * 124) Miss Baker nodded.
 * 125) "She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't
 * 126) you think?"
 * 127) Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of
 * 128) a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back
 * 129) at the table.
 * 130) "It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety.
 * 131) She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and
 * 132) continued: "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic
 * 133) outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale
 * 134) come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away" her
 * 135) voice sang "It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"
 * 136) "Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough
 * 137) after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."
 * 138) The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her
 * 139) head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all
 * 140) subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the
 * 141) last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again,
 * 142) pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every
 * 143) one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom
 * 144) were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have
 * 145) mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth
 * 146) guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament
 * 147) the situation might have seemed intriguing--my own instinct was to
 * 148) telephone immediately for the police.
 * 149) The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss
 * 150) Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into
 * 151) the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while
 * 152) trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed
 * 153) Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In
 * 154) its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
 * 155) Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and
 * 156) her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent
 * 157) emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some
 * 158) sedative questions about her little girl.
 * 159) "We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly.
 * 160) "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."
 * 161) "I wasn't back from the war."
 * 162) "That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick,
 * 163) and I'm pretty cynical about everything."
 * 164) Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more,
 * 165) and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her
 * 166) daughter.
 * 167) "I suppose she talks, and--eats, and everything."
 * "Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what
 * 1) I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?"
 * 2) "Very much."
 * 3) "It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about--things. Well, she was less
 * 4) than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether
 * 5) with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it
 * 6) was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head
 * 7) away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope
 * 8) she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world,
 * 9) a beautiful little fool."
 * 10) "You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a
 * 11) convinced way. "Everybody thinks so--the most advanced people. And I KNOW.
 * 12) I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything."
 * 13) Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she
 * 14) laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated--God, I'm sophisticated!"
 * 15) The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention,
 * 16) my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said.
 * 17) It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick
 * 18) of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited,
 * 19) and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk
 * 20) on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather
 * 21) distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
 * 22) Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker
 * 23) sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from
 * 24) the "Saturday Evening Post"--the words, murmurous and
 * 25) uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light,
 * 26) bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair,
 * 27) glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender
 * 28) muscles in her arms.
 * 29) When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
 * 30) "To be continued," she said, tossing the magazine on the table, "in our
 * 31) very next issue."
 * 32) Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she
 * 33) stood up.
 * 34) "Ten o'clock," she remarked, apparently finding the time on the
 * 35) ceiling. "Time for this good girl to go to bed."
 * 36) "Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow," explained Daisy,
 * 37) "over at Westchester."
 * "Oh,--you're JORdan Baker."
 * 1) I knew now why her face was familiar--its pleasing contemptuous
 * 2) expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of
 * 3) the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I
 * 4) had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story,
 * 5) but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
 * 6) "Good night," she said softly. "Wake me at eight, won't you."
 * 7) "If you'll get up."
 * 8) "I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon."
 * 9) "Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange
 * 10) a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of--oh--fling you
 * 11) together. You know--lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push
 * 12) you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing"
 * 13) "Good night," called Miss Baker from the stairs. "I haven't heard a word."
 * 14) "She's a nice girl," said Tom after a moment. "They oughtn't to let her
 * 15) run around the country this way."
 * 16) "Who oughtn't to?" inquired Daisy coldly.
 * 17) "Her family."
 * 18) "Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's
 * 19) going to look after her, aren't you, Nick? She's going to spend lots of
 * 20) week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very
 * 21) good for her."
 * 22) Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
 * 23) "Is she from New York?" I asked quickly.
 * 24) "From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our
 * 25) beautiful white"
 * 26) "Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?"
 * 27) demanded Tom suddenly.
 * 28) "Did I?" She looked at me. "I can't seem to remember, but I think
 * 29) we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of
 * 30) crept up on us and first thing you know"
 * 31) "Don't believe everything you hear, Nick," he advised me.